Note: This issue is a revised version of a previous summary
(Linguist 15.2322) updated to accomodate the following information:
linguist P, formerly listed as a New Zealander, is an American who
currently teaches in New Zealand.
Thank you very much for your responses to my questionnaire
(Linguist 15.2255) about 'who' and 'what' in subject-verb concord.
I received responses from 16 of you linguists; 9 AmE speakers, 5 BrE
speakers, 1 Australian and 1 New Zealander.
I am pleased to present to you a tentative summary of responses for my
examples (1)-(5).
(1) Who are gathering in the park?
(2) Find out who are coming to our reunion. We need to make a list of
the participants.
(3) They are demanding that the provincial government take action to
find out who are responsible for the Tuesday disaster.
(4) Let us proceed to inquire who have been excluded from testifying
as witnesses under the term "Indian".
(5) Is there an archive site for this mailing list where I might be
able to find out what have been discussed in the past?
= Acceptability Ratings Table =
Acceptable= 2 points
Sound odd but sort of OK= 1
Not acceptable/Terrible= 0
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) Total Comments (Abridged)
___________________________________________________________________
A (AmE) 0 0 1 1 0 2 (1) might be improved if
preceded by "The
X's are gathering at the
store, the Y's are
gathering under the bridge,..."
B (AmE) 0 0 0 2 0 2 Grew up in several places
in the US. I find
only (4) to be grammatical.
(5) is really bad.
C (AmE) 0 0 2 0 0 2 (3) is OK. Southern
Americans might ask
"Who all are..." Get a
reply from a Briton.
D (AmE) 0 0 0 0 0 0 Your examples sound much
more BrE than AmE.
Impossible in America.
E (AmE) 0 0 0 0 0 0 I would reject (1)-(4) and
especially (5).
F (AmE) 0 0 0 0 0 0 56 years old. Grew up in
California, spent most
of adult life in eastern
US. I would prefer
singular or "Who all + plural".
G (AmE) 0 0 0 0 0 0 Your examples don't have
explicit plural
indicators; the singular is
therefore the norm.
H (AmE) 0 0 0 0 0 0 None of your examples sound
natural to me.
I (AmE) (No judgements given) Try using a large database
of spoken and written
English and find out how
language is really used.
___________________________________________________________________
J (BrE) 2 2 2 2 2 10 All your examples are good
English.
K (BrE) 2 2 2 2 0 8 For me (41-year old BrE
speaker) (1)-(4) are
fine and (5) is very odd.
L (BrE) 2 2 2 2 0 8 Native speaker of English,
born in Scotland,
lived there 26 years, have
lived in England for
the last 11 years. All of
your examples except
(5) sound fine to me.
M (BrE) 0 0 0 1 0 1 I speak standard British
English. I find (1)-(3)
and (5) completely
unacceptable. (4) is slightly
better probably due to the
plural 'witnesses'.
N (BrE) 0 0 0 0 0 0 I speak fairly standard
Irish/British English.
(1)-(5) sound horrible and
pedantic.
_______________________________________________________________________
O (Aus) 2 2 2 2 0 8 The rules of agreement are
becoming more relaxed.
_______________________________________________________________________
(REVISED)
P (AmE) 0 0 0 1 0 1 American, teaches in New Zealand.
(4) sounds less awful than
the others. Go to some electronic
corpora. That is more reliable
than people's judgements.
________________________________________________________________________
~From looking at linguists A - I, we find that the acceptability
ratings are so low that we may safely surmise the singular is the norm
with AmE speakers.
Linguists J - P, however, present a formidable problem. J,K,L and O
rated the construction very high, while M,N and P gave a flat denial
to the same construction. They are all native speakers of English in
Britain and in countries where BrE more or less prevails. And they
are linguists!
I said this summary is 'tentative'. I would appreciate knowing how you
would view the apparently conflicting norms BrE speakers have to
choose when using the construction.
Hideo Hibino
Formerly Professor
The Department of English
Kinran College
Japan